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Thinner than a human hair, big as a bus and bound for space (al.com)
Updated Jun 29; Posted Jun 29
By Lee Roop
lroop@al.com
Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center has designed some of the biggest and most powerful rocket engines in the world, and now it's gone the other way with a solar sail as big as a bus but thinner than a human hair.
"Not a conventional propulsion system," Marshall scientist Les Johnson observed Thursday afternoon just outside a clean room, where the sail had passed a critical unfolding test.
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NEA Scout and its camera and sensors is one of 13 small science projects that will fly into space on the first mission of the Space Launch System in 2019. After the Orion capsule has launched from SLS on its trip around the moon, the cubesats will be launched on their missions.
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not much more: https://www.al.com/news/huntsville/index.ssf/2018/06/thinner_than_a_human_hair_big.html